


encore

by icarusandtheson



Series: encore [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Class Differences, Developing Relationship, M/M, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: The night they go out to celebrate Alex's return, Lafayette shrugs, says, “Washington's not getting anywhere without good people around him. You,” here he gestures at Alex with an empty shot glass, “are the best people. He's a stubborn motherfucker, but he knows when to swallow his pride.” Lafayette’s gaze sharpens, the glint in his eyes too-knowing and shockingly sober. “A rare breed in this country, no?”Alex thinks of exit signs: the stairwell leading down from his floor of the office, four letters glowing big and bright and reassuring.He fishes the lime out of his glass, sucks on it until his teeth hum from the sour, from the bitter of it.





	1. Chapter 1

The night they go out to celebrate Alex's return, Lafayette shrugs at Alex’s shock --

Relief. He’s relieved, he wanted this.  

Lafayette shrugs, says, “He's not getting anywhere without good people around him. You,” he gestures at Alex with an empty shot glass, an easy, unsurprised toast, “are the best people. He's a stubborn motherfucker, but he knows when to swallow his pride.” Lafayette’s gaze sharpens, the glint in his eyes too-knowing and shockingly sober. “A rare breed in this country, no?”

Alex thinks of exit signs. The stairwell leading down from his floor of the office: four letters glowing big and bright and reassuring, in case of emergency. Thinks of keeping an eye on it always, the neon in the corner of his eye.  

He fishes the lime out of his glass, sucks on it until his teeth hum from the sour, from the bitter of it.  

\------

Washington is blocking his light. Alex recognizes the breadth of the shadow, feels the way the room shrinks small; the assessing weight of his gaze pushing down, down, before Alex looks up at the rest of him.

“You’re still here.” The words aren’t necessarily disapproving -- they haven’t been, since Alex started back. Alex hasn’t allowed room for it.

“Yes, sir.” His eyes want to refixate on his screen --  easier, safer than Washington’s gaze. Less searingly bright. He allows them a reprieve, glances at Washington’s coat, the satchel slung over his shoulder. “Are you leaving?”

Washington nods. “I planned to make an earlier night of it.” His mouth twists into something wry as he glances out the windows, the night well-settled beyond them.

Alex recalls Washington’s schedule, works backwards. “I thought you met with Senator Schuyler last.” Washington should have had time to make his early night by a fair margin.

Washington lets out a low, exasperated noise. “Philip can be stubborn when he wants to be. We went substantially over time.”

Alex frowns. “I didn’t know that.”

“You didn’t need to.” Washington tucks his free hand into the pocket of his coat, thumb rubbing absently at the pattern sewn at its edge. “It couldn’t be helped.”

“You weren’t prepared for anything in-depth,” Alex argues, “especially if he wanted to get into discussing specific legislation.”

Washington raises an eyebrow. “I managed, shockingly enough.”

It’s an easy chiding, in the grand scheme of Washington’s arsenal, but it’s enough for Alex to remember himself. The back of his neck heats under the sting, and he glances away.

“Right.”

“I would have let you know if I needed you,” Washington says. He pauses. “I appreciate the concern.”

“Do you need anything from me before you go?” Alex asks. Sidesteps the olive branch in Washington’s tone, sidesteps the conversation altogether.

Washington shakes his head in response, sweeping his gaze over Alex’s desk. Neat, but nearly obscured by files and looseleaf. A replica of Washington’s in that respect, just scaled down in size and quality of materials. That’s the only difference: the make, the cost. They’re the same, otherwise. They’re just the same.

Washington lifts his gaze. That wry look, again, lining his mouth before it disappears. “The work will hold, you know.”

“I’ll be leaving in a few minutes, there’s just --”

Washington sighs. The sound of it lacks heat, but it’s enough to cut Alex off. “There’s always more, with you.”

“Because there’s always more to do,” Alex retorts. “I can at least keep on top of it.”

Washington cuts him a look, and it’s familiar enough to jar him. Knowing, almost amused; part of the old rapport Washington has steered clear of lately. “I know for a fact that you’re not that naive, Hamilton.”

Alex feels his cue, a tug in the pit of his stomach to keep that rhythm. He makes some kind of noise, a beat too late. Derision, amusement, indifference -- Washington will hear what he wants in it. It could have been “sir”, huffed quick and exasperated. It could have been anything.

“I used to think the same way, when I started out. You’re smarter than that.”

Washington steps away; opening up the room again, giving Alex space to breathe. He adjusts his satchel, the movement stretching the gray wool of his coat across his shoulders. It looks soft. Warm.

Alex’s fingers itch.

_Naive._ Something small and wide-eyed and soft, unsteady on its own legs.

Alex glances at his laptop, its screen gone dark. He stands, starts to gather his things. Washington raises his brows, surprise softening his expression. Alex drops his gaze to his desk.

“I expected more resistance,” Washington admits into the silence.

There’s a retort sharp on his tongue -- the last time he resisted Washington, he nearly lost everything. It would cut. He knows Washington’s reputation for treating his staff well is carefully curated -- making him out to be some kind of tyrant would wound him, scoring some soft, private underbelly that Washington pretends to be removed from.

The strongest case for its existence: Washington’s expression after Alex screamed at him. The hurt, there -- Alex has replayed the moment a thousand times, and there was hurt. Before the anger, before the disappointment and regret. Alex couldn’t have imagined it, wouldn’t have known what to picture.

Sometimes, a sharp, hungry thing inside of him wants to see it again, wants Washington’s hurt pulsing between its teeth.   

He doesn’t have the energy for it now, or the confidence he once did to come out of it unscathed. He can hit, he can even land a blow well enough to hurt, but Washington will always be able to hit back harder. That was part of his appeal, back when Alex started the job -- Washington challenged him, met him argument for argument if Alex made enough of a case for himself, enough of a nuisance. Now it just reminds him how far he has to go before he can take Washington on -- now it just leaves him tired.  

Alex smiles thinly, lip service to a script they haven’t followed for a while. He doesn’t look up to gauge Washington’s response. The rustle of fabric, the scent of Washington’s cologne stirring in the air -- he’s satisfied, apparently. A victory over Alex’s oft-contested work habits and the liability of them that hangs over Washington’s head.

The movement stops before it should, in less time than it takes to cross the office floor. Alex glances up to see Washington leaning against the next desk over, scrolling through his phone.  

“Is everything alright, sir?”

Washington looks up, confusion furrowing his brow. His gaze falls to where Alex is already starting to pull his laptop back out, and the furrow smooths out. Exasperation lining his mouth, amusement crinkled around his eyes.

“Just fine.” He pockets his phone and nods towards the exit. “Shall we?”

Expectant, easy. Like he makes a habit of lingering on the whims of his employees. Alex blinks up at him, but he can’t read any explanation in his expression, only the question. He nods, not trusting any verbal response to hold up under scrutiny. Washington’s face doesn’t change. Alex has no way of knowing if he’s given the right answer, if there is a right answer.

They fall into step with each other; Alex couldn’t say which of them adjusts his stride first.      

The elevator car is warm and blessedly silent. Washington doesn't push the advantage of the small space to attempt a conversation; he leans back against the wall, squints against the brightly lit numbers before shutting his eyes. Something tense in the furrow of his brow, even pained -- headache, probably. It usually is, with him. Alex reaches into his bag, searches until his fingers brush up against the bottle of knock-off Tylenol.

Washington’s eyes open at the rattle, brow raising as Alex holds the bottle out to him. “That’s alright.”

 “Just take it,” Alex says, and the exasperation in his voice surprises him. Washington’s expression doesn’t change, but he takes the bottle, shakes out a couple of pills into his palm. They look laughably tiny, cradled there. Useless. Like they can’t possibly relieve the burden weighing on him.

Alex takes the bottle back, runs his thumb under the ridge of the cap. Washington takes out a travelling mug, takes the pills. It’s too quiet, too small of a space; he can hear Washington swallowing, can see the movement of his throat working out of the corner of his eye. The usual rich, warm scent of good coffee is absent -- something slightly herbal in the air, no heat to it. Tea gone cold, maybe. It’s there and then it’s not, overpowered by the scent of Washington’s cologne, heavy and heady and spice-warm in Alex’s lungs.

“Thank you.”

Alex shrugs, replaces the bottle when staring at the instructions doesn’t yield anything useful. He looks down at his shoes, scuffed at the edges from his walk to work, curls his toes against them and bites back a wince at the ache. He wonders if Washington is equally uncomfortable, doubts it – the leather of his shoes seems like it would be butter-soft to touch. Alex ducks his head and shoves his hands deep into his pockets, beyond exasperated with himself.

A soft ding announces their arrival on the ground floor. Alex feels a gentle pressure against his arm. He looks up sharply, didn’t realize he closed his eyes in the first place, but Washington is already stepping out into the foyer, tugging his collar up in anticipation of the cooler night air. He nods to the receptionist and then glances over his shoulder, like Alex is likely to have gotten himself lost in the few feet from the elevator.

Alex follows him out into the night. He doesn’t know what else to do.

He wonders if Washington is anticipating some sort of nervous breakdown on his part. He can’t think of any other explanation for the caution, for the concern -- maybe he came off more unhinged during their fight than he thought. For a short, bitter moment, he thinks of Laurens and Lafayette -- but no. They wouldn’t have said anything about the state he was in immediately afterwards. Laurens would never risk their friendship, and Lafayette -- Lafayette cares deeply for Washington, Alex knows that and knows it’s returned, but Alex has never questioned his friend’s loyalty. The moment passes, and guilt slicks the inside his mouth, acrid and awful.

Whatever Washington has seen in him to make him wonder has been Alex’s own doing.

“Will you be able to get home alright?” Washington asks.

He stops, Alex doesn’t, the rhythm falters -- Alex has to look back at him now, look up at him, a handful of steps behind Alex on the stairs. His watch glints, lit by the headlights of a passing car. Alex doesn’t want to face him, doesn’t want his back to him -- either option bares too much, leaves Washington too much of an opening.

“I’ll be fine. I know which routes to take at this hour.” He maps them out in his head -- not ideal, but familiar enough.

“Of course.” Washington’s mouth tugs into a brief smile. “I’m sure you’re used to it.”

“Yes, sir.”

There’s a space there for Washington to press the issue of Alex’s late nights. Alex has the counterargument already set; Washington works similar hours; earlier this week he responded to Alex’s three in the morning email within ten minutes. Calling Alex out for following his example would be hypocritical at best -- not that that’s stopped him before. Washington looking down on him and chastising him in the middle of the street -- Alex would know where they stood, then. He could yank Washington forward by his collar and force him to be on equal ground, or else they’d both fall to the sidewalk, and that would amount to the same thing.     

Washington looks at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable in the streetlights’ glow. For once, Alex waits to be spoken too, instead of filling the silence.

Washington descends, nods to Alex as he passes. “Have a good night, Alexander. Be safe.”  

His coat sleeve brushes Alex’s fingertips as he passes. The wool is warm, and soft, and Alex registers this on a purely sensory level, then registers the quiet space in Washington’s mouth before his name. Alex drags the bottom of himself, combs the silt for anger or revulsion or any of the emotions that he leans on to fuel him. It all falls through his fingers, fine like sand, Washington’s voice calling him _son_ a casualty somewhere among all that debris.

“You too,” Alex says, inflectionless. Washington can read whatever he wants in it. He can take whatever he wants.  

Alex watches him go, his head ducking against the cold. There’s something to it, the broad, blank canvas of Washington's retreating back, something biting. Alex swallows it down, teeth and all, and looks away before Washington turns the corner.

He stands on the street for a little while and watches the cars go by.

It doesn’t sound anything like the ocean. He remembers the ocean at night, more clearly than anything else from his childhood -- the long dark stretch of it swallowing up the horizon into one massive night, the way the wave-sounds distorted when there was nothing to see, wet and lurching like a slowed-down heartbeat, like a big thing dying or waking up from a long sleep.

Naive: stuck to pavement, thin-skinned, something on the brink of spilling its contents out. The ocean laps at his feet, but it doesn’t pull him in, and he starts on his way home.

\------

The humidity lays over him like a blanket, his legs lead-heavy with sleep and aching from their awkward angle on the couch. Alex reaches a hand up to smooth his hair back from his face, and his fingers come away sweat-slick.

Clinking dishes, the smell of good, strong coffee wafting through the air. He blinks slowly at the wall, the framed photo hanging just above eye-level. A beam of sunlight cuts across it, obscuring the image and manifesting a dull ache behind his eyes.

Alex pushes up onto his elbows, wincing at the brightness, the sharp protest from his muscles.

A soft snort. “You’re too young to be making that face.”

He stretches until he feels something pop in his back, sighing in relief at the release. “I outgrew this thing a long time ago.” He nudges a fraying cushion with his foot, stuffing bulging under the pressure.

His mother glances at him out of the corner of her eye, her smile momentarily rueful -- remembering the days they both fit in this space, maybe, the two of them falling asleep curled up in front of the tiny television. The look passes quickly, shifts to something more familiar, exasperated and amused in equal measure.

“Leave my couch alone,” she says, snapping her fingers warningly towards his foot. “If it rips any more, you’re sewing it.”

He withholds the urge to roll his eyes like the surly teenager she teases him for being, and manages to coax his body into sitting upright.

“ _Mon pauvre,”_ she drawls, fondness lining her face despite the sarcasm. “You’re all red.”

He rubs at his face and feels the flush there, indentations from the couch fabric scoring his skin. “I’m fine.”

She hums, unconvinced, and crosses the room to throw open the back doors. The wind is warm on Alex’s face, ruffles her skirt, their hair, the current easing the weight of the humidity. His mother pushes the mass of her curls up with her free hand, tilts her face towards the sun and sea-breeze like a flower.

Something warm and aching jostles in his chest, flaring when she looks back at him, her mouth curling into a smile at whatever she sees in his expression. It hurts, looking at her -- his eyes haven’t adjusted yet, probably. Beyond her, he can see a scrap of sky -- searingly blue and cloudless. He grimaces, shuts his eyes for a moment. The headache won’t leave him.

“Relax,” she says. “You’ve got time.” She sips her coffee, skirt rustling as she shifts, and for a while, that and the laughing caws of the gulls are the only sounds.

There’s a cup set out on the table beside him when he opens his eyes again, still faintly steaming. He makes a low, grateful sound in his throat -- he’ll suffer the additional heat, if it cuts through his lethargy. He reaches for it, frowns to find it half-empty.

He breathes in and wrinkles his nose at the unexpected spice of it. Not cinnamon -- he’s drank it that way a thousand times, mixed up sweet with milk and brown sugar, back when coffee was more indulgence than necessity. This isn’t it.

His mother raises an eyebrow at his reaction, side-eying him with amusement. “You have a problem with my _café?”_ She rolls her eyes in mock-exasperation, waves off his protests. “I’ll make some fresh in a minute. I want to enjoy the sunshine first.”

Alex sets the cup down. The smell lingers on his hands, cloying. Cinnamon-adjacent, maybe -- warm in the same way, sticking in the back of his throat. He thinks, absurdly, of incense.

He curls his toes against the floor, sticky with moisture and sweat, and tries to gather the energy to stand. His gaze drifts, listless, to his mother’s sandals on a mat by the door, the pair of shoes resting beside them, too large to be his. He glances back at the cup, and he must make some sound, because she glances over, brow creasing with concern.

“Is Pa home?” he asks warily, even though the size and style isn’t right at all, even though they left him behind years ago, different island, different --

He glances away sharply, picking at the couch cushion. Afraid to look too closely at this, at any of it.

The picture frame glints out of the corner of his eye -- three people in it, maybe four. Smiling and smiling and smiling.

He doesn’t look, can’t.

_Don’t do this._

His mother’s eyes narrow in confusion as she pushes off of the wall. She snorts, the sound muffled as she drains the dregs of her cup. She passes between him and the doorway, eclipsing the light, drawing his focus somewhere safer, kinder.

“You have strange dreams, _corazón.”_

She leans down to collect the cup, her hair brushing the air in front of him. His fingers dig into the cushion and he feels the fabric give and tear, insides spilling out into his palm. One cup stacked neatly in the other, a crack running down the side of it. He leans forward, but she’s already pulled away.

“Stay,” she urges gently. He can smell milk warming, thick and sweet. “You can stay. It’s not time for you to go yet.”

\------

The smoke stings on the way down, scratching at his throat, his lungs, leaving him cold again when he exhales into the night.

He’s steadily making his way through the pack Lafayette stashed in the hallway closet -- something to do with his hands, his mouth.

He takes another drag from his cigarette, swallows the discomfort so he can swallow the warmth with it.       

He leans his head back until it meets the wall, watches the smoke unfurl off of his tongue. The cigarette in his hand is burning close to the filter, the brightest thing in his line of vision -- he’s got another minute left, if he’s lucky. This one will probably be his last.  

The lights are off behind him. If someone looks up, they’ll just see a blank, black square, a little pinprick of light where his outline should be.

He kicks the ashes out onto the street once he’s finished, heads straight for the kitchen, for the cinnamon in a crumpled-up packet in the cupboard, usually saved for John’s oatmeal.  

He pours coffee, takes a spoonful and stirs it in, belatedly wondering if he should have asked first. He takes a drink that scalds the roof of his mouth, coats his tongue in something almost-familiar.

It’s fine, it tastes fine. It's not _café con leche,_ but it wasn't supposed to be.

It hurts like a motherfucker, which was probably the point.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> additional warnings for sexual content.

He walks for a while, loops the same few blocks around the office over and over again until his soles ache. Reaching for something like comfort, maybe -- in the familiarity of the high buildings, in the way he blends in with the pockets of harried, well-dressed people rushing past him.

It's more than he ever thought he'd get, the few times he let himself be realistic about his prospects. He made it out, he made it here. Even if he clearly isn’t top of the food chain material -- too young, his clothes not tailored to every inch of his frame -- nothing about him screams _outsider_ loudly enough to warrant a second glance.  

Ostensibly, that means something by way of accomplishment. It’s progress, it matters, and he should be proud of how far he’s come.

He stares down the length of the crowded street, his skin tight and itching under his collar. He could keep moving until he was clear of all of it. He could go until he was somewhere he could breathe right.

Someone jostles his shoulder while they pass. He readjusts his bag strap where it's digging into his shoulder and turns back towards the office. He's wasted enough time.

Washington isn’t at the office yet when he gets in, and Alex doesn’t have the energy to pretend he’s not grateful for it, not relieved. He sinks into his desk and waits for something to loosen in him. He’s here, whatever that means. At least he’s here.

He pulls up the notes he made on his commute over, clicks his computer back to life. Washington’s latest email stares back at him: stark, ordered lines, difficult and demanding and real _._ Something he can anchor himself to, if he can make himself focus.

He gets back to it, drafting emails and summarizing endless pages of information into something succinct Washington can take in with his morning coffee. He’s good at this. He knows what details Washington will want to know first, knows when to eschew those for something more immediately important.

 _Symbiotic,_ John said, and he was right. It wasn’t nearly the compliment he thought it was, but that’s not his fault. Like a lot of things, like most things, that’s on Alex.  

The work is as good a distraction as he can find: enough of a challenge, enough repetition, that Alex can submerge himself in it for a while. He knows it can’t last, but he somehow still manages to be surprised when Washington stops at his desk.

Alex takes in the hard set of his jaw, the tightness in his shoulders, and feels whatever tension he managed to let go of flow back into him, an incoming tide.

“Your office?” Alex asks.

“When you have a moment,” Washington says, but he doesn’t protest when Alex immediately pushes himself to his feet. They’re both working to keep up this polite fiction between them, and it’s marginally better than snarling at each other. Alex can play along.

“I have time now.”  

Washington gestures for him to follow, and Alex’s day starts in earnest.     

\----------

Alex feels brittle, off -- a half-step behind his usual self now that he’s removed from the relative safety of his desk. Washington’s office has too much space to fill, Washington fills too much space -- somehow, neither of these things balances out the other, and Alex doesn’t feel sharp enough to maneuver through it like he could otherwise.  

He’s apparently not sharp enough to keep his eyes on his own work, either. Washington’s fingers tap out an impatient rhythm on the desk for two, three beats before stopping and curling in against his palm, the movement of it almost beckoning. His glasses catch the light when he turns his head; he cuts a striking profile, as always. Blame it on the lack of sleep, on the caffeine, on anything. It’s not like it makes a difference either way.

Alex rolls his shoulders back, tries to work out the tightness there and pull his focus back at the same time. He sends Washington the information he’s looking for and jumps on the next task before he can continue making a fool of himself.

“Hamilton.”

“Yes, sir?”

Washington glances up from his laptop, brow raising. “This isn’t what I asked you for.”

Alex bristles as he retrieves the email from his sent folder -- he knows what Washington told him to find, and it’s not his fault if Washington doesn’t know what he _wants --_

Oh, fuck.

“I sent the wrong document,” Alex says, staring at his screen like he expects it to rearrange itself to reflect his memory and feeling vaguely betrayed when it doesn’t.

“It’s alright if you don’t have it.”  

“I do, it’s here.” Alex scowls at his screen, a dull ache in his jaw as he clenches. “I don’t know how I missed that.”  

“It’s alright, Alexander,” Washington repeats. “Take your time.”

Alex glances up sharply, but he finds nothing in Washington’s expression worth pushing back against. He’s almost disappointed.

Alex finds the right file, checks and double-checks the attachment before he sends it. He glances up at Washington. “I’m sorry.” A beat, then he adds, “This isn’t reflective of anything else I’ve done today.” Even as he says it, he’s scrolling furiously through his sent folder, matching up attachment names and confirming he hasn’t been completely useless.

Washington pulls his glasses off, wincing. Alex wonders if the headache has come on yet, or if there’s enough time to head it off. “I didn’t think it was.”  

“Good.”

Washington’s gaze holds for another moment, glasses dangling from his fingertips. Alex pointedly keeps his eyes locked on his screen, and he doesn’t relax much even after Washington’s attention shifts away again.   

\----------

The commute home sets his skin crawling in the worst way, too much stillness, too much time to sit in his own brain and go over the day, go over all his stupid mistakes. He feels heavy enough to sink into the street and stay there, stuck in the asphalt and concrete.  

He’s home long enough to change and put something in his stomach, then he’s grabbing for his keys again and heading for the door before John can ask him any questions, before he can think too hard about it.

\----------

Somebody is singing about getting fucked up or getting fucked. The bathroom door shuts behind him, and the song is muffled into just its basic parts, just the bassline Alex can feel pounding behind his eyes and the beat -- it’s good, fast, but it’s not doing much for him tonight.

He pushes his hair from where it’s plastered to his neck -- the bathroom is a little cooler without the crush of bodies, but not by much. He swallows, his throat stripped raw. His stomach roils, and he wonders if he’s going to be sick here, a stomachful of coffee and bile and not nearly enough alcohol to make any of this tolerable.

He takes the stall furthest from the door, stupidly grateful for the flimsy metal door between him and the rest of the world. He leans against the side and breathes. The heat sticks to him like a second skin, thick with the overpowering smell of sweat -- his, strangers’.

There’s writing scribbled on the inside of the door, a smudged number at eye level, the writing beside it rubbed beyond legible. The first shape looks a little like _call_ and Alex snorts something close enough to a laugh, lets his head fall back. The ceiling light is flickering, a little.

He’s not drunk, but he could be. He could get this out of his system before it starts bleeding into his life, into his _work,_ and still look at himself in the mirror tomorrow. Maybe, if he’s lucky, it’ll help him get to sleep tonight.

Washington’s fingers curling back against his broad palm, not at all coaxing but _still_. Washington sprawled behind his desk, easy and commanding, Alex’s name whole and almost gentle in his mouth.  

Alex is vaguely nauseous. It feels honest, it feels like the most honest thing he’s allowed himself in years. He can live with it if it’s here, if it happens someplace he can cut out of his life and forget.

His skin is hot, tight, insides spilling over slick onto themselves. _Call for a good time._

 _Okay,_ Alex thinks, _fine,_ and tugs his belt loose.

He tries to picture Washington here with him, and the image is incongruous enough to be jarring. Washington in the cramped bathroom stall of this shitty bar, his hand down Alex’s pants. It’s a joke. Alex would laugh if he could make anything pass the lump in his throat. So he imagines he’s somewhere else, somewhere discreet and nondescript without smudged graffiti on the walls, imagines Washington there with him.

He splays his palm flat against his stomach. It doesn’t feel much like anything, doesn’t match with the mental picture of Washington’s hand on him. He presses hard, feels his muscles twitch beneath the pressure, beneath the ghost of a different, broader hand. He can feel every involuntary movement beneath his skin, his hand slipping sideways against sweat-slick skin until he corrects it, slides it further down and cups himself through the fabric.

He’s not hard.

He thuds his head against the partition once, twice. He tries again. Alex pushed up against a different, more solid wall. Not in the office, because he needs to be able to set foot in there on Monday, but somewhere after it. Washington still in his suit, the scent of his cologne and the sweat of a long day clinging to him. Washington like he was today, like he so often is, tension in every line of his body. Easy to imagine how the line frays, snaps. Alex on the other end of it, convenient and discreet _._ Useful. 

His cock twitches. Something builds at the back of his throat and he swallows against it, his tongue thick and clumsy in his mouth. Apparently, he can work with _useful_.

Alex fumbles with his zipper for a moment, but the slowly solidifying image of Washington wavers in his mind. The hand slows, its movements sure and precise. Patient. Washington is perfectly, infuriatingly patient, would be even in this, even itching for relief of his own.

His pants are pushed down, hand sliding past the elastic of his boxers to wrap around his cock. Alex flinches at it, skin on skin, the grip edging on too tight -- his hips press into it, honest.  

Easier to focus on the hand working him slow and merciless and not the rest, like that somehow makes this okay, makes this anything close to excusable. But the rest filters in -- the smell of him, the weight of his body and the curve of his mouth at the corner, pleased and a little amused when Alex makes some sound he can’t hear over the pulse in his head, his mouth, his cock.

The pride lining his eyes when he smiles. The quiet space in his mouth before Alex’s name.

Alex’s hand falters at that, Alex’s hips don’t, and somewhere in that disconnect the weight of it, the _reality_ of it hits him full-force, turning his stomach over on itself. He pulls his hand back and has to brace himself against the partition so he doesn’t slide right down to the floor covered in god-knows-what, because his legs won’t hold him.

_Fuck._

The pressure between his legs is fucking unbearable, he’s so hard it hurts and he _can’t --_

His skin is fucking unbearable; he’s going to be sick.

The light flickers overhead, on-off, on-off, threatening to leave him drowning in the dark.     

\----------

He makes it home, somehow, makes it into and out of the shower without coming out of his skin completely, without touching himself too much.

He’s used to this. Disaster, aftermath. He always comes back here, if fate doesn’t drag him back then he walks.

His reflection blurs in his peripheral vision: a vague dark shape whose eyes he can’t meet. He spits in the sink; his mouth still tastes like salt underneath the mouthwash.

He turns away from the mirror, stomach lurching as he faces the blank, black doorway.

 _It’s empty. It’s empty, there’s no one there, and you need to get your shit together._ He blinks slowly, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth as he stares out into the dark.

From where he’s standing, it looks like it goes on forever: an endless, empty hallway, leading anywhere that isn’t here.

**Author's Note:**

> *Thanks for reading! Leave a kudos and comment if you liked it!  
> *Find me on Tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/)


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